This invention relates to tethered golf ball retrievers and more specifically to such retrievers which provide reduced resistance to the ball when it is struck so as to drive it from the retriever.
Golfers, in their attempt to achieve proficiency in the sport, frequently spend substantial amounts of time in practicing the game. Practice areas where a golfer may rent a quantity of practice golf balls have proliferated in an effort to provide satisfactory facilities for such practicing. From the point of view of the golfer, however, such facilities suffer from an obvious disadvantage. This disadvantage is that the facilities are frequently located some distance from the places where the golfer usually lives or works and, therefore, one who wishes to utilize such a facility must spend what may be a substantial amount of time in traveling to and from the practice area. In an effort to overcome this obvious disadvantage, golf ball retrieval devices which may be used as personal practice apparatus have been developed. These devices are frequently small portable units which include a motor and a take-up reel. In operation, a golfer, desiring to practice his golf stroke, strikes a ball, which is connected by a tether to the device, and the motor-driven take-up reel subsequently retrieves the ball to the practice device where it may be positioned for subsequent practice. In operation, however, these devices although much more convenient in utilization than traveling to a practice area, also suffer from a number of disadvantages. For example, the struck ball, at the beginning of its flight from the device, must overcome substantial resistance provided by the inertia of the take-up reel having the tether wound thereon. In addition, lightweight, hollow, perforated balls, commonly known as WHIFFLE balls, cannot be used with such devices because their mass is so low that for all practical purposes they are incapable of drawing the tether from the take-up reel. Finally, such devices have long been recognized as being unsatisfactory in that a substantial amount of energy is utilized in overcoming the inertia of the take-up reel rather than in imparting motion to the golf ball and, therefore, an inaccurate representation of the results of a golf swing is provided to the golfer. In an effort to overcome these substantial disadvantages, a modified form of golf practice device has been proposed. This modified practice device is substantially similar to that discussed above with the exception that the take-up reel is of a construction comparable to that of a reel utilized as a spinning reel in fishing. An example of such a golf practice device is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,826,439. Although such type of golf ball practice device or retriever represents a substantial improvement over the type using a conventional take-up reel, it has been found that the spinning reel type of device also suffers from a substantial disadvantage. This is due to the fact that these types of take-up reels frequently snarl or kink during the take-up process and these kinks and snarls cause substantial line resistance (drag) when they are withdrawn from the reel. It may therefore be seen that, although the spinning reel type of golf ball retriever does, in substantial respects, overcome the disadvantage of golf practice apparatus which is associated with conventional reel and line drag, the device is subject to other disadvantages.